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in memory of JOHN LENNON

Awesome pictures! I really enjoyed his artwork too..simple yet impacting with a sense of whimsy and hopefulness. What a loss. It is too bad that Yoko seems to be commercializing his image. Have you seen his line of baby stuff? http://www.buythebeatles.com/c42.html

I just want to say how much I loved the Beatles and John Lennon. He died 5 years before I was born and I was in the third grade before I even knew he was dead! My mom was sort of obbsessed and didn't like to talk about his death. But I think it was learning how he died that turned me into a death hag. I was hooked then at the age of 9.

The Beathles music is the soundtrack to my childhood and it was a wonderful conection I had with my mother who passed away in January 2005. So I love John Lennon.

Here is a video I made last year to honor him. Really a Lennon/McCartney tribute, and one to my mom.

I love John Lennon. I like the Beatles, but I LOVE John Lennon. I love his solo work a lot. I wasn't born when he died but my mom remembers watching on the news as they announced that he had been killed; she could not believe. She liked John Lennon (although she loved Elvis more and actually cried when she heard he died) and the Beatles a lot.

His killer? A damn looney. This was just so senseless and just so heart felt. I wish I were alive when he was around. *Sigh*

I was in high school when John was murdered and remember it vivdly. I loved the Beatles and John especially. Yoko is very strange but he seemed to be happy with her and he adored Sean!! That is the true tragedy in his death in my opinion that boy lost a daddy that loved him so very much. As for the killer...he may be crazy I don't know but he does not deserve to get out. You can't reform crazy!
I always think about Doris Tate saying her daughter wouldn't walk out of her grave if her killers got parole. I think if you kill you should be caged for life.....or given the death penalty and anyone who has read my posts know I am very much for the death penalty....

I bought and read your book, Loving John when it first came out. Now, I read it's out of print. Why would that be? I mean Danny Sugerman's No One Here Gets Out Alive is still in print.

A - It's hard to say why. I really don't know. When I first put out my book, nobody realized the real story that went behind it. I guess people couldn't go beyond the John and Yoko image. People were not ready to accept that. Let me ask you this: what did you feel when you read the book? How did you feel? What did you think?

- I thought if this guy wasn't John Lennon, no woman would've put up with him.

A - OK. What I'm saying to you; and that's all fair. That's true. For certain things, you're right. Nobody would've put up with it. But again, then you also know about some of the women that have been abused in their life too. So, it's a little bit of wherever you want to go. You've seen those on Oprah. Why'd you stay with that guy? It's a bit of both. For me, it was like, could you have believed what I told you?
- Yes. The John Lennon you saw on stage or in A Hard Days Night was not the John Lennon you'd see off stage.

A - Correct.

Of course, you could probably make that statement about any public figure.

A - That's absolutely true. It could be about anyone. My thing is, a lot of people were not ready to accept that side of John. So when my book comes out, there's so many different versions and even to this day I have people writing to me, "I've never heard of you before. All of a sudden you're there." And I've always been there, it's just that I'm the one that was never married to him, but I was there. But, it's the time period you talk about that most people are interested in John when I was there with him. It's quite interesting because the party line is he had a long, lost weekend. And that's really a reference to that movie, the Ray Milland movie where the guy was drunk and it was all weekend. But it wasn't a weekend. I've had people actually say to me "why are you talking about John like you know him? You were only with him for a weekend." That was John's flip way of describing it.A - He went back home and you know in my book, you read it, in the last five years I actually saw him, but nobody knew. So, how is he gonna say "I'm with Yoko and I'm happy" and turn around a say, "well I had the best time of my life, I'm still with May." Do you know what I mean? It didn't work, But John and I had something very special. But the time period everybody talks about, oh, he was so drunk when he was with May. But what people don't realize is, that's just the party line that went out. How many times did he really get drunk that you read about?
- I only read about the incident at The Troubadour when The Smothers Brothers were performing and John was in the audience, yelling up comments to The Smothers Brothers.

A - Exactly right. That's the one that keeps cropping up. But, that the only one. We talk about Elton John. Well, I was with him then. We talk about him hanging out with David Bowie. I was with him. But we don't see that part because that is not the way the press is made out. You know from when an Elliot Mintz represents Yoko puts it out. I'm the one that they want to put to the side.

What did you think of Yoko's artwork?

A - To me, it was strange. It was not conventional, but after working on it for so long, it was something I had to learn (about), the Fluxus Movement. That was like the elite avant-garde group. If you belonged to it, you were in the group. Believe me, I'm a learner on that one. I still don't know a lot about it. I met Jonus Meekus and George McKunus. They were the artists that showed up. They started the Fluxus Movement.

Let me quote from your book. Page 152, you write about Yoko, "She felt that she had become sufficiently famous in her own right and did not want to share her fame with John anymore. John stood in the way of her career and she was determined to continued on her own." What career are you talking about here...art or music?

A - Music.
- She thought she was a singer / songwriter?

A - Well, it was a little bit of both. At that point in time, it would probably have been music more than art, 'cause she was making albums. She felt she was on par. I even had musicians coming up and asking me, saying that she was telling them she was the songwriter in the family.

- (laughs)

A - When I worked there, I had to walk the fine line. They were asking me, "What about John? Doesn't he write?" Of course he does. How do you explain this? I said, whatever. Yoko writes and I'm sure she has her side. I'm sure you have all of her albums. (laughs)

I don't know about that. But, when I wanted to drive my father crazy, I'd put on one of her albums and he'd run out the door!

A - OK, well...(laughs)

Page 84, "John believed that people had an expectation of him because he was John Lennon. The thought that he might not fulfill that expectation made him nervous and he preferred to meet as few people as possible." To your knowledge, was anyone ever disappointed after meeting John Lennon?

A - There was a part of John that was always insecure. What people don't realize is, John is the John you see. It's like what you said earlier. What you see on stage is different from the man he is at home. He could be as dull as the next person in the same breath. You'd say 'What do you want to do?' "Nothing today." 'OK, OK' you'd say, 'but there's so much to do.' But again, that was John at home. People see stars where they have this life and they go out and party. You think about it, they must have this great life, they're out every night. That wasn't John. He preferred to sit in front of a TV set. So, that's really what it meant.

Page 179, John talking: "I've got so many crazy fans. You know all I need is one of them who really is my fan and who really loves me but has a screw loose and do you know what he'll do? He'll probably get me. That's what he'll do." First, he thought it would be a man not a woman who would get him. And secondly he really believed that, didn't he?

A - He believed it to a certain degree. I understand what he was going through. I didn't understand it before. You don't understand it unless you're in that realm, when you see a million fans coming at you. You go "Oh my God! Where do you go?" When you see a guy like Manson...there's a guy who has a screw loose. OK. You just need one. That's all it takes. And there were so many out there. We just don't know who they are. He said it in more of a general statement. That's only because you get people like Manson who said "They told me in the song." Helter Skelter. But the thing is, John didn't write that one. But, they come to John. Then you go back and you think about that time when he said "We're more popular than Jesus Christ." He wasn't talking about they were better. I understood it the minute I heard it.

It's interesting that John almost saw that coming(HIS DEATH) He had predicted what his future could be and ultimately that prediction was right.

A - Can I tell you something? I think Elvis or anybody who has fans after them, it's there. You get it. It doesn't have to be just John. What I'm saying is if you are idolized, there is one someone in the crowd. You're reading much more into John. Knowing it, it's not that. It's there. You can feel it when somebody comes up to talk to you. You're trying to get away and they're still in your face.
- John never did employ a bodyguard did he?

- I also never understood why Yoko would give interviews and tell what their (John and Yoko's) routine was, what their schedule was.

A - Right. John never gave that out. John didn't give out routines. John wouldn't talk about his lifestyle. That was not his thing.

- These interviews were seemingly a blueprint of where the Lennons would be at such and such a time. It was a disaster in the making.

A - I know. And I think Chapman also said when he read Esquire Magazine and no possessions and you're talking about money. John never talked about that. That was Yoko. John didn't like to talk about wealth. In that time, believe it or not, they were more paper rich and cash poor. They were wealthier than the average person. I'm saying they were the guinea pigs of the music business. In the early days, even though they had everything, they were really more paper rich.

- I'd read that in 1980, John was making $50,000 a day in royalties. When he wanted a pack of cigarettes, he'd give somebody in the Dakota building a $100 bill to get him a pack of cigarettes. When that person returned, he'd say keep the change. Everybody wanted to go out and buy a pack of cigarettes for John.

A - He wasn't supposed to be smoking. If you remember in my book, that's when he was supposed to be quitting. (laughs) You see what I'm saying? Prior to that, there were cartons of cigarettes in the house. So obviously if he did that it was because he was not supposed to be smoking and then he was desperate for something, so he obviously sent someone out.
- You're saying the $50,000 a day report is an exaggeration?

A - Absolutely. Are you kidding? I'm not saying he didn't make money. Think about it: $50,000 a day? I doubt it. Not a day. They definitely made better deals as time went on, when things were re-negotiated. Are you glad that you worked for the Lennons during that period of time?

A - There's no regrets. I've had an amazing experience in my life and it's still happening. So, why would I regret that? I don't.

I envy you, May. You got to spend time with somebody who the world will always be interested in.

A - It's true, isn't it? And yet I see that and at home it was just John. We just had a good time. We'd go out. I took him on a bus ride. Funny, taking him on a bus ride in Manhattan. It was fun. We'd say, let's go out, get in a car. We would go out to the Hamptons. The first time he ever went out to the Hamptons was the two of us together. We'd never done that, so we just drove out there. Had a great time.

Photos of Yours Truly, Karen and John Lennon

When John and Yoko came to Montreal in May 1969, Karen, my best friend and I skipped school along with Karen's sister and another friend to go and hound them.

If it hadn't been for Karen's persistent hounding of John's manager at the time, Derek Taylor, we never would have met John and Yoko, and Yoko's daughter Kyoko.

Karen wore poor ol' Derek Taylor down to a frazzle; he had no choice but to give in to her.

Photos:

Karen is the long-haired girl wearing the white jeans, I'm the short-haired one wearing the grey jacket. It really was a grey jacket, too...never mind the b/w photos! I also wore a mustard yellow V-neck sweater (blech!) and dark blue bell bottoms. I started smoking after I met John Lennon. When we met him, he was smoking non-filter Gitanes, so that's what I decided to poison my lungs with.

Rest of Lennon Pics

Do I have memories of that day! There was a woman hanging around outside Lennon's suite who wasn't permitted entry. She had a pot of multi-coloured daisies and once she found out that Karen and I were going in to meet John and Yoko, she thrust the pot at me and begged me to give it to Yoko for her.

I told her I would, and I did give the flowers to Yoko, saying they were from a fan who was outside. I had a good look at the daisies before I presented them to Yoko, and there were little bugs crawling on them. EWWW!

When Karen's sister and our friend Joyce went in to meet John and Yoko (they had to go in after we did) Joyce tripped over a huge TV cable that was taped to the floor and fell flat on her butt. John was zonked out of his mind but he woke up long enough to burst out laughing at her.

Karen has some original colour pics of us, I really ought to phone her and ask her to get me copies of them...do you know after all these years I have never done it? She lives in Toronto; I am still in Montreal.

Karen had just turned 15 when we met Lennon, and I was 14.

Apart from Karen taking pics, I have no idea who the other people are.

And yes, the photos were taken in Lennon's hotel suite. He had a suite of two rooms.

Kyoko is Yoko Ono's daughter from her previous marriage. When we met her, she was being a right pest! She was about seven or eight (I am guessing) and was running around, bashing into people and hiding in the suite's closets...being a kid.

And the Hare Krishnas were there when we were, I just remembered! OMG, they tried to give me some of the slop that they eat. One of the Krishnas literally asked me to extend my hand, palm facing upwards, and like an idiot I did it. Hey, I was only fourteen!

He slapped a dollop of Krishna food right into my palm, from his hand to mine. I can still remember the texture and colour of it. I was repulsed.

As soon as he turned his back, I slapped the dollop of slop into a nearby standing ashtray, LOL! I wonder why he didn't offer Karen any of it?!

Lennon's killer said he finally realized that he had not just killed the rock star John Lennon but he had destroyed the life of a father, brother, lover ...etc. That being said it is also important to realize that Lennon's killer is a person too and although what he did was senseless...honestly any murder of anyone is really senseless. Does the American Justice System believe in the ability for these people to be reformed or are they merely human storage facilities? I imagine Lennon's Killer would be a fool to want out...however does he have a right to be released? Is it Lennon's stature as a celebrity that makes his murder more important than any other murder? thus his killers ability to reform impossible?....just a couple of questions.....I hate the Bastard too!

I wouldn'tworry about him being reformed so much as i would worry about him being sane and staying sane.

I always felt that JOhn did his first wife and son wrong. Then he was murdered and left them nothing and left the bitch in control of everything. I lost a lot of respect for him. Cindy had to work as a waitress and at one time they were on welfare. He may have been a great artist and crazy about his soon with the skank but he sure as hell treated Jullian like dirt.

In 1980 John Lennon released the album "Double Fantasy" which included a Yoko Ono song called "Kiss Kiss Kiss." Apparently if this song is played backwards it contains the message, "I shot John Lennon."

Mark David Chapman listened to this album over and over again before shooting and killing John Lennon in December 1980. Chapman never tried to escape after the shooting, he simply waited for the police to arrive and arrest him.

Chapman was clearly crazy because he shot John 4 times and never once took a shot at Yoko.

Bundled up against the freezing New York winter, a pretty little girl with mischievous eyes and pink butterfly hairslides sits happily on her grandmother's knee, her mother by her side.

This was the scene as Yoko Ono, John Lennon's widow, met for the first time her granddaughter Emi, 3. Until recently her mother, Ono's daughter Kyoko Cox, 37, had kept the child away from Ono because of an extraordinary 30-year feud.

They were seen in Strawberry Fields, the memorial garden to the murdered former Beatle in Central Park across the road from the Dakota Building where he was shot dead 20 years ago.

Ono is so delighted by the reconciliation that she has told friends and lawyers that half her vast fortune, estimated at more than $1 billion, will be settled on Emi in a trust fund, and that eventually she will share the Lennon legacy with her mother's half-brother Sean - Lennon and Ono's son.

Yet three years ago Ono, 67, did not even know that Kyoko was alive. For years, Kyoko lived in hiding after being abducted at the age of eight by her father, eccentric American film-maker Tony Cox, Ono's second husband.

He was deeply resentful when she left him for Lennon and vowed the Beatle, whom he accused of being a depraved drug addict, would never get custody of their child.

For three decades, moving from continent to continent, she evaded investigators paid by Yoko to find her.

In November, 1997, three weeks after Emi's birth, Kyoko finally re-established contact with the woman she was brought up to believe was, like Lennon, the personification of evil.

Kyoko, a charity worker, said: "I didn't feel it right for me to become a mother without at least letting my mother know that I'm alive and well." Initially, Kyoko spoke to her mother on the phone, from Denver, Colorado, where Kyoko is married to a devout Christian.

In 1998, she agreed to meet Yoko and Sean, now 25. Last week, the emotional reunion finally took place.

Kyoko was aged five when Lennon and Ono became lovers and left her in the care of Cox. Later they tried to kidnap the child while she was in Majorca with her father. After this, Cox disappeared with Kyoko.

A friend of Cox, David Clark, said: "Kyoko's childhood was clouded by the battle between three control freaks - Yoko, John and her natural father. Her father told her he was rescuing her because her mother was involved in drugs and the occult. Her mother stood for corruption."

Ono did not file for custody of her daughter until she was eight. In 1969, soon after marrying, Lennon and Ono launched their campaign for Kyoko's heart.

Their song, Don't Worry Kyoko (Mummy's Only Looking For Her Hand In The Snow) featured Ono yodelling the words with Lennon on guitar. The fight moved to the US, where the couple formally sought custody in 1971.

Cox retaliated by testifying Ono and Lennon were drug users. A judge ruled the child should live with Lennon and Ono. But Cox had snatched Kyoko. "It is as much for Yoko's sake that Kyoko is trying to reach out and get to know her," a friend of Kyoko's said.

I don't understand the question really. I don't feel he had a reason or that John was a phony. There are just some people out here that ar spiteful and jealous so they ruin other people's lives. I think that is the better explination for is actions.

Agreed. And, too, I think he wanted to be JL, and killed him thinking his dream would come true, which doesn't make sense, but the **** was a low wattage nut. Disillusional. (I once got an email on my website from a UK nutter who claimed he was going to be the next Bruce Lee.)